Various medical procedures, particularly cardiology procedures, involve accessing a corporeal vessel or other lumen through a percutaneous sheath. The sheath necessarily requires the formation of a hole or opening in the vessel wall so that a medical procedure can be performed via the sheath. After the particular medical procedure has been performed, the sheath must eventually be removed from the vessel and the access hole in the vessel wall must be closed.
Historically, the access hole is closed by the application of prolonged manual pressure over the puncture site by a physician or other trained medical professional. The time involved with this method is extensive and costly. In addition, because patients are often treated with a variety of anticoagulant and thrombolytic agents, the manual pressure required to close the access opening in the vessel wall may be even longer. The discomfort and delay in mobilization for patients resulting from this prolonged manual pressure is significant.
Therefore, a number of vascular closure devices have been developed to close an access opening in the vessel wall more efficiently. For example, closing an access opening in the vessel wall may involve packing a resorbable sealing plug at the hole or sandwiching the hole between the sealing plug and an anchor. Examples of such vascular closure devices and methods are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,179,863; 6,090,130; and 6,045,569 and related patents that are hereby incorporated by reference.
Alternatively, closing an access opening in the vessel wall may include the use of a balloon catheter. For example, an access opening in the vessel wall may be closed by inserting a balloon catheter through the opening in the vessel wall, inflating the balloon, pulling the balloon against the inner wall of the vessel, introducing a procoagulant to the incision site external to the puncture in the vessel wall, and withdrawing the balloon catheter. This method relies on a biochemical reaction between the procoagulant and the blood. The reliance on a biochemical reaction, however, can be problematic. For example, the mixing of the procoagulant with the blood is arbitrary. Therefore, in many cases an exaggerated dose of the procoagulant is applied in an attempt to ensure hemostatis. An exaggerated dose, however, can accidentally enter the blood stream and introduce complications. Moreover, reliance on a chemical reaction based on arbitrary mixing between the procoagulant and the blood often results in an inconsistent seal composition, which in turn results in inconsistent hemostatic sealing performance.